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FLAVOUR AND FRAGRANCE JOURNAL, VOL. 5,91-95 (1990)
Chemical Composition of Eucalyptus Essential Oils Grown in
Uruguay
Eduardo Dellacassa, Pilar Menkndez and Patrick Moyna
Catedra de Farmacognosia y Productos Naturales, Facultad de Quimica, General Flores 2124, Montevideo, Uruguay
Eduardo Soler
Dexin Ltda, Las Heras 1790, Montevideo, Uruguay
The chemical composition of essential oils from 22 Eucalyptus species growing in Uruguay are described. It was found
that 1, 8-cineole, citronellal, p-cymene and benzaldehyde are the main constituents.
KEY WORDS Essential oil analysis
Genus Eucalyptus
INTRODUCTION
1, 8-Cineole
Uruguay. The leaves and twigs collected were
placed in plastic bags and kept at - 4" C for two to
three days prior to extraction. Herbarium samples
are kept in the Botanical Department of the Agronomy Faculty, Universidad de la Republica, Montevideo.
Owing to their adaptability and fast growth, more
than 70% of the trees planted in Uruguay are
represented by species of the genus Eucalyptus.'
Their wood finds use as firewood, as industrial fuel
and in the national paper industry.
Several Eucalyptus essential oils have been used Essential Oils
in traditional medicine. Their antimicrobial activity
The leaves and twigs were steam-distilled in an
has been reported and their ability to inhibit the all-glass apparatus for two hours. The condensed
growth of other organisms has resulted in the use of
leaves in grain storage and their proposed use as Table 1. Yield of Eucalyptus essential oils grown in Uruguay
potential natural
Yield (wt of oil/wt of fresh
Only the essential oil from E. globulus growing in Eucalyptus
leaves (%))
Uruguay has been described,6 so the chemical
0.44
composition of other species introduced into Uru- E . viminalis Labill.
paniculata Sm.
0.23
guay is still unknown. This article is an approach to E.
E. melliodora Cunn.
0.20
the correlation of the Eucalyptus introduced into E. botryoides Sm.
0.03
0.06
Uruguay with those described in the literature. This E . grandis Sm.
0.17
could be of interest because of the very large E. sideroxylon C u m .
E. rnaculata Hook.
0.18
intraspecific variations in this genus.
E. pellita F.v.Muell.
0.10
The essential oils of Eucalyptus could be consid- E. longijolia Link & Otto
0.10
ered as valuable by-products, should their compo- E. amplgolia Naud.
0.36
0.14
sition be of interest. In this paper we describe the E. diversicolor F.v.Meul1.
0.13
chemical composition of the essential oils from 22 E . ujjinis Deane & Maiden
E. globulus Labill.
0.80
of the most common Eucalyptus species growing in E. lehmanii Preiss.
0.20
Uruguay.
E. polyanthemos Schau.
0.02
EXPERIMENTAL
Plant Material
The foliage samples obtained were of representative trees from the most common species growing in
0882-5734/90/02009 1-05%05.00
0 1990 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
E. tereticornis Sm.
E. cladocalyx F.v.Meul1.
E. citriodora Hook
E. camaldulensis Dehn.
E. obliqua L'Herit.
E. punctata DC.
E. gornphocephala DC.
0.17
0.07
1.30
0.30
0.07
0.13
0.02
Received 2 May I989
Accepted I November 1989
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E. DELLACASSA ET AL.
94
water was separated from the supernatant oil Analysis
and extracted three times with diethyl ether. The
ethereal extract was added to the oil layer, dried
The identification was done by means of the
over anhydrous Na2S0, and Et,O was carefully retention times of the different components in relaremoved by distillation under atmospheric pres- tion to standards using two GC columns (PEG
20M and OV-17) and by GC-MS.
sure.
Capillary GC was carried out using a Shimadzu
The yields of the oils obtained are given in
Table 1.
GC6-AM with PEG 20M and OV-17 bonded
Table 3. Composition of Eucalyptus essential oils with low l,8-cineole content. Concentration in percentage (wtjwt) as
determined by peak area percentages in GC.
E.
~
tereticornis
Sm.
a-Pinene
8-Pinene
Sabinene
Myrcene
a-Terpinene
Limonene
8-Phellandrene
1, 8-Cineole
y-Terpinene
p-Cy mene
4-Isopropenyltoluene (*)
Ci tronellal
Benzaldehyde
Linalol
Isopulegol
trans-p-menth-2-en-1-01 (*)
B-Car yophyllene
Terpinen-4-01
cis-p-Menth-2-en-1-01(*)
do-Arornadendrene (*)
Cryptone
Pin-3-ene-2-01(*)
Citronellyl acetate
Piperitol (*)
a-Terpineol
p-Menth-3-en-7-01(*)
p-Menth-3-en-3,8-dioI (*)
Unknown
6-Cadinene (*)
cis-piperitol (*)
Pulegol (*)
Ci tronellol
Terpinyl acetate
Cuminaldehyde (*)
Carveol (*)
p-Cymen-8-01 (*)
j3-Epoxycaryophyllene(*)
p- Mentha- 1,3-dien-7-ol (*)
Cedryl formate (*)
Globulol (*)
Methyleugenol (*)
Viridiflorol (*)
Cumin alcohol (*)
Cuminaldehyde (*)
Spathulenol (*)
C-15 alcohol M'222 (*\
C- I 5 alcohol M 220 (*j
Thymol
Citronellic acid (*)
a-Cadinol (*)
CarvacroI pj
8-Eudesmol (*)
0.5
E.
ciadocalyx
F.v.Muell.
E.
citriodora
Hook.
E.
obliqua
L'Herit
0.9
0.8
0.7
1.2
0.8
E.
punctata
DC.
E.
gomphocephala
DC
4.1
1.5
6.1
0.7
1.5
0.9
E.
camaldulensis
Dehn
0.9
1.5
1.6
0.8
16.6
6.5
0.6
28.8
1.o
11.1
8.9
5.0
14.1
1.5
1.2
30.8
14.6
0.6
0.8
0.6
2.6
4.1
9.2
12.5
4.9
2.1
5.8
3.6
2.0
2.0
0.7
2.2
24.4
59.2
34.2
0.7
22.9
1.0
2.7
4.6
4.2
19.5
3.1
5.5
1.9
3.2
7.4
0.5
0.8
2.3
1.3
1.1
1.4
2.9
7.5
1.4
0.9
6.1
17.7
0.6
2.0
2.0
5.6
6.2
1.1
2.0
1.5
0.5
3.0
1.2
0.7
0.8
1.1
1.1
0.6
1.o
0.9
0.5
1.1
0.6
0.5
0.9
15.3
2.0
20.1
0.5
0.6
1.6
2.4
15.5
3.8
2.1
0.7
1.6
2.5
23.4
22.9
4.6
+
0.7
0.8
0.7
0.5
1.1
2.5
0.6
Identification key: (*) indicates identification by GC-MS.
0.9
8.8
EZICALYPTUIS ESSENTIAL OILS
phase capillary columns (50 m x 0.25 mm i.d.), N,
at 0.8ml/min, split ratio 1/32, and temperature
programmed from 50°C to 210°C at 50"C/min.
GC-MS was measured on a Hitachi M-808
GC-MS with an ionization potential of 20 eV, with
PEG 20M bonded phase capillary column (50 m x
0.25 mm i.d.), He at 1 ml/min, and temperature
programmed from 70°C to 215°C at 4"C/min.
95
are to E. viminalis7 and E. yarraensis." E. gomphocephala has methyleugenol as major component.
Acknowledgements-The authors wish to thank the International Foundation for Sciences (Stockholm) for grant F741, the
Japanese Embassy at Montevideo for an important equipment
grant to the Facultad de Quimica, and the PEDECIBA project
UNDP-URU/84/002 for support that made the work possible.
They also acknowledge the collaboration of Professor C.
Brussa (Facultad de Agronomia, Montevideo) for the identification of plant samples, Mr T. Iwai (Takasago PC, Japan) for
GC-MS data, and Mr D. Lorenzo for typing.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Although more than 150 compounds were identified in the different essential oils, they could be
simply classified as 'high cineole' or 'low cineole'
types.
Table 2 shows the essential oil composition for
the 15 species of Eucalyptus where 1,8-cineole is the
main constituent. E. globulus has the highest 1, 8cineole content, although E . pellita and E . longifolia
have similar percentages.
The results for E. melliodora, E . longifolia,' E .
maculata,8 E. lehmanii and E. polyanthemos' agree
with those described in the literature. Those for E.
paniculata, E . botryoides, E . diversicolor, E . afinis,'
E. amplifolia,' E . sideroxylon,".
and E .
viminalis12 differ.
In four of the seven 'low cineole' species (Table
3) the main components are from the phellandrene
series. p-Cymene is present in E . tereticornis with p menth-3-en-7-01, cryptone and cuminaldehyde, as
previously reported;8*l 3 in E. obliqua with cis- and
trans-p-menth-2-en-1-01, small amounts of cryptone and an unidentified compound; in E. camaldulensis with cryptone as previously r e p ~ r t e d ; ' ~l 5.
and in E . punctata with 8-phellandrene. In E .
camaldulensis and E. punctata important amounts
of spathulenol were also detected.
The E. citriodora sample in Table 2 corresponds
to the so-called 'type I',I6 with a composition of
60% of citronella1 and 23% of isop~legol.'~E .
cladocalyx, with benzaldehyde as the main constituent, is also included here. The only references
found on benzaldehyde in Eucalyptus essential oils
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